f the hands dare use them, except a
minute now and then when the foreman happens to leave the room! They
know they will get docked in their pay if they are caught sitting down
at their work! And yet it is always flaunted before the visitors that
the workmen can sit down when they like. So they can, but they can go
home without a pay-envelope if they do, when Saturday night comes. Oh,
there is enough here to make one's blood boil! You're interested in
these things? I wish you'd let me tell you more some time. About the
long hours, the stifling air in some rooms, and the little children
working in spite of the law! I wish men like you would come down here
and help clean this section out and make conditions different! Why don't
you come and help me?"

The minister laid his hand on Courtland's arm, and instantly it seemed
as if the Presence came and stood beside him and said: "Here! This is
your work!"

With a great conviction in his heart Courtland turned and followed Burns
down the broad marble stairs out to the office, where he left word for
Tennelly and his uncle that he had been there and had to go, but would
see them again that evening, and then down the street to Burns's common
little boarding-house, where they sat down and talked the rest of the
afternoon. Burns opened Courtland's eyes to many things that he had not
known were in the world. It was as if he laid his hands upon him and
said, as of old: "Brother Saul, receive thy sight!"

When Courtland went back to the university his decision was made. He
felt that he was under orders, and the Presence would not go with him in
any such commission as Uncle Ramsey had proposed. His only regret was
that Tennelly would not understand. Dear old Tennelly, who had tried to
do his best for him!

The denouement began in Tennelly's room after supper, when Courtland
courteously and firmly thanked Uncle Ramsey, but _declined_ the offer!

Uncle Ramsey grew apoplectic in the face and glared at the young man,
finally bringing out an explosive: "What! You _decline_?"

Uncle Ramsey spluttered and swore. He tore up and down the small
confines of the room like an angry bull, bellowing forth anathemas and
arguments in a confused jumble. He enlarged on the insult he had been
given, and the opportunity that was being lost never to be offered
again. He called Courtland a "trifling idiot," and a few other gentle
phrases, and demanded reasons for such an unprecedented decision.

Court